Debian Wheeze Freeze approaching!

Debian is working towards freezing the packages to be included in Wheezy (7.0) in June. I have been using Wheezy for months and find it quite usable although the installer did not work for me a couple of times. With the freeze, the pile of release-critical bugs should become a stationary target…

I recommend Debian GNU/Linux for all IT. It’s a great idea to have people upstream organize a huge set of installable packages and make it work for you. With the APT package-management and other tools any kind of system of any size can be set up and managed quickly.

About Robert Pogson

I am a retired teacher in Canada. I taught in the subject areas where I have worked for almost forty years: maths, physics, chemistry and computers. I love hunting, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, too.

48 Responses to Debian Wheeze Freeze approaching!

Traverso is certainly not comparable to any of the DAWs people use successfully for producing music. The previous official release doesn’t even have a master channel!

It’s just silly to state that the program would be in no immediate need for new features because of its plugin support. The program’s plugin support is very sketchy and has not seen any improvements in years. It currently supports only LV2 without GUIs, which means that a fairly low number of plugins will work (I don’t think there’s even a decent reverb plugin available for it). What’s even a bigger turn-off for most users is that the handling of the I/O connections is basically non-existent – you’ll have to redo your connections each time you start the program and load a project (I do this myself with shell scripts that I run by using keyboard shortcuts in Openbox).

I really, really like Traverso for its “soft focus” approach and its attempt to eliminate menus. Unfortunately, it seems like its developer is unable to sort out the huge number of bugs the version on git has and seems to have more or less abandoned the project by this point. I’ve tried to take a look at the code myself, but to get that project back on track would require a lot of work.

No, you haven’t. If you had open them at all, you would have noticed that you cannot access the filter circuitry on a Minimoog at all – it’s completely sealed to protect the design. Oh, and you would have noticed that the Prophet used ICs while the older synths used discreet components.

So the question is: Are you a pathological liar or a wannabee-prankster trying to pull our collective leg?

oldman
“Over and above the fact that this is yet another obscure version 0.x piece of software that you have trotted out, I dont see how you can possibly compare this half a$$ed piece of software that requires geek creds and specific knowledge to implement compares with a piece of commercial software that one just buys, installs and uses.”
And because you are a twit. I point this out to you. You can buy a preconfigured tablet with all the extra an the right hardware right extensions and it installed. Yes part of the http://indamixx.com/ tablets and devices and other pre configured Linux stuff.

I am sorry Traverso DAV is no toy. If you want todo up your own solution you have to the hard yards.

If you spend money it requires no geek creds and specific knowledge to implement. Its your choice what path you wish to choose.

The commercial also includes reniose out box.

oldman commercial exists in the FOSS world about time you get use to it. Sometimes it just providing what you can get for free preconfigured to work simply.

“Also try downloading the last stable. 0.49.2. Just to be nasty there is no exact download. You have to read the mailing list and find the git maker.”

Over and above the fact that this is yet another obscure version 0.x piece of software that you have trotted out, I dont see how you can possibly compare this half a$$ed piece of software that requires geek creds and specific knowledge to implement compares with a piece of commercial software that one just buys, installs and uses.

Do you really believe that this would get used by some non let alone maintained/upgraded by some geek musician

“Minimoog, Prophet 5, MS 20 and the Oberheims”
ch in fact its area where I do have knowledge. I have rebuild sections of the first 3. So yes I can state with absolutely they are related in the circuits.

I guess you have never done restore work on synths fixing their electronics. At the surface they look different until you have the circuit diagrams side by side and you wake up you can mix them up. Even have completely different names for the synth circuits that electronically are mostly the same. They are mostly a tweaks here or there of the same circuit designs. Those tweaks is what makes the sound they produce unique. To be expected when most of the designers of them learnt from the same books.

Yes its a case of you not knowing the topic with enough detail to understand why a single filter can do all of them. As long as it includes all the correct tweak points to allow for the different circuit designs.

The last true unstable dates in 2011 not 2010. 2012 has a few minor complier fixes.

Also try downloading the last stable. 0.49.2. Just to be nasty there is no exact download. You have to read the mailing list and find the git maker. 0.49.2 was never released for windows. Yes the 2010 for windows the unstable is prior to the 0.49.2 release.

Yes this is a case of a program that is not truly on windows even that it has a old windows version.

ch
“All the analog synthesizer emulations use the same filter, an absolute no-go!”
To be correct you don’t know the synthesisers in the list on Bristol Synthesiser. They all contain the same circuit designs in places. They might look vastly different but they are all related.

So the absolute no-go is not correct its valid for the list of synths it emulates. Even some new ones replicate the same circuits. So they are mostly the same synth parts with different assembly. That is why Bristol is one filter.

Ardour is a light weight. I use renoise that is a commercial.

Since you only got threw a and b you did not get to Traverso DAW or other audio modification program audacity is nice for basic things yes really its limiting. There are equals Wavelab. Traverso DAW particularly with its Non-destructive editing and if you have a full set of addons in jackaudio and lv2 addons what I do.

Traverso DAW is a classic case of better on Linux. On windows it does not support plugins so it does not have looping or many other key useful things so is basically a paper weight on windows.

Yes the list is that long finding the good stuff is hard unless you know where the list of the good stuff is.

Ok for us in the know ch. We would never have started by trying to scroll though the repo list its just too long.

ch, my applications are tools. I use an abundance of applications, many of which are available on that other OS. The trolls demand a list of applications not available on that other OS and then criticize me for using them… Sheesh!

so your favorite “applications” are cron (really a tool, not an application that does anything ny itself), openSSH (another tool) and a calculator? With needs as basic as that, no wonder you can live with the kind of applications available for Linux.

Clarence,

“what do they do that is useful outside of providing utility support for Linux itself?”

I just took a look at the link Mr Pogson provided: A listing of the packages in Debian. Do it for yourself, and you will soon notice that the top-level categories are mostly tools and utilities, a lot of programming languages – and very few that suggest actual applications.

So I took a look into the “Sound” category. Even more tools, quite some media players – and, after I had scrolled through “A” and “B” (the list is really long) I had found three applications for music making:
– Ardour: A DAW like Cubase et al., only not as good (as the authors frankly admit)
– Audacity: An audio editor like Wavelab, only not as good, but at least somewhat useful according to reliable reviews.
– Bristol: A collection of emulations of synthesizers and some other keyboards. Looks nice, seems to be easy to use – and absolutely half-assed where the actual sound is concerned (with the exception of the Hammond B3 emulation, probably). Just to give you an idea: All the analog synthesizer emulations use the same filter, an absolute no-go!

Oh, choice quotes from the program’s homepage:
“The -52 is the same as the -5 with the addition of a chorus as it was easy, it turns the synth stereo for more width to the sound, and others have done it on the Win platform.”

All hail innovation!

“it is on my list but I have no dates to do it, usual story of open sourced code – I have work and a family which means that time for coding the freeware stuff is limited.”

Clarence, I suggest you have a look at the “text” category, you will find once again oodles of tools and utilities, often split into yet more packages – and in between some great applications like “dadadodo” – really, check it out!

Viktor
“Do you know why almost any VFX software is available for Windows?”
Also most of those have server side products for Linux to get the advantage of Linux when it comes to large data processing.

This is the thing Windows as been better at the desktop. Its not better when you need large processing. This is a kernel difference. So shops run both taking advantage where each is good.

Lot of the so called Windows shops commission large projects out to Linux based render farms. The reality is VFX is mixed shop.

Viktor
“X264 is not â€œhardware acceleratedâ€. Except if with â€œhardwareâ€ you mean the CPU.”

There are closed source codecs for Linux todo x264 that are faster than the open source ones. Normally if you are in a hurry you don’t do x264 on cpu anyhow. Yes most windows versions of the x264 encoder and decoder link back to direct x and use gpu in places. So yes its hard to get a true cpu reading on windows unless you go out of your way.

So I would like to know what x264 encoder or decoder you were comparing.

Also one person had the idea they would demo the x264 open source different to me. Problem my system has ulatencyd to set linux process management like windows. If it was just cpu it most likely was the fact the Linux system was not setup like a desktop machine. Yes windows desktop give a bias to the active window connected processor to it gets more processor time. Default Linux without ulatencyd does not. So guy was very much egg on face.

This is why its important to understand the two kernels before benching and to make sure you have them set the same. Linux and windows set the same Linux kernel normally out runs windows in all cases.

Viktor
“Again, look at Ubuntuâ€™s PPAs. They were created because people need to update to current software and donâ€™t want to wait for another 5 or 6 months.”

Even using PPA’s still provide a unified system for updates. This is an area where windows is a historic mess.

PPA are still repository based solutions providing more modern sooner.

So outdated software is not a limitation of the repository system.

KDE has in fact over the recent versions reduced in size. The processes will see it keep on doing so. Its also not like on my desktops I notice the extra ram usage. Things that worry me are stuff that starts consuming around 20G.

So you are a idiot who has not researched the differences between Windows at Linux at the kernel level. […]

I don’t need to. Stop with your fairy tales, will you? Do you know why almost any VFX software is available for Windows? Because VFX studios use this software on Windows. There are not only the traditional Unix/Linux shops who have started with IRIX or whatever. No, there are Windows-based shops, too. They must know something you don’t. Or else they would call you to switch them to Linux.

That would be hardware acceleration.

X264 is not “hardware accelerated”. Except if with “hardware” you mean the CPU. It was merely an example that even non-GUI software can run better on Windows than on Linux. And in this case this means: faster.

Sorry not true. On windows its not sane to install it because it not stable yet. Linus and many others have been kde users.

Sorry, but KDE is a royal mess. On every platform. It’s bloatware. I only would use KDE applications when there’s absolutely no alternative.

Windows users also fail to update software. Windows users also update software before proper checking is done on it so it fails on them in bad ways. So there are good sides to repository system as well.

I don’t even doubt that. Some people pushed Microsoft to include a general update mechanism for Windows 8, but they didn’t want to hear it. But it’s a zero sum game. You gain something, you lose something. Again, look at Ubuntu’s PPAs. They were created because people need to update to current software and don’t want to wait for another 5 or 6 months. But that opens a whole new can of worms. And I’ve seen that people tend to use third-party repositories without a second doubt.

Viktor wrote the old canard, “at some point using the shell canâ€™t be avoided.”

That’s nonsense. System administrators may need to know typed commands but end-users rarely do. In all the schools in which I taught, no one below grade 10 or on staff needed to know typed commands. There’s just no need. I taught computer science and technology course in which commands are vital. I use commands because I can and because they are more useful for what I do sometimes but I don’t need to.

What does the poor user make of whatâ€™s on his screen however? Does he really want to push â€œenterâ€? How does he know whatâ€™s blank real-estate and whatâ€™s part of a file-name?

Now you’re playing dumb. Because something like this is OS-independent. Someone who doesn’t know how to operate the shell in Windows doesn’t know it in Linux or in Mac OS X, either. The only difference is that he most likely WILL be forced to learn some shell basics in Linux. Because Linux is a usability nightmare. And at some point using the shell can’t be avoided.

Ted have you used windows tab complete. Bash tab complete is nicer. You type part of the file name under Linux and it lists the options. Windows you cycle threw the complete lot looking for what you want.

This is something that was not fixed by powershell. Yes the very thing that annoys Linux/Unix people the most on windows is drop to command line and tab complete not working right.

Ted it was Victor a windows user throwing the stone over space handling at Linux and posix.

Basically as normal Victor does not know is topic. Deleting suxs equally on Posix and Windows command lines. rm does have a interactive mode that it asks for each file before it deletes it. del under windows also has a /Y where it does not ask. The both tools in the hands of twits can hurt themselves.

Windows does not have anything like ksm. In fact blender even performs slightly better running in windows inside kvm and ksm with a ballooning memory driver setup than on the raw hardware but can come down spectacularly.

Basically anything handling large data Linux kicks but. KSM is one of the many core techs that makes that happen with no equal on Windows that gives the Linux kernel major advantages with particularly types of work. Better memory management equals more data in memory before needing to use swap. So making better value out that ram you paid for.

“x264 runs faster” That would be hardware acceleration. That is more how well your hardware was matched to the OS. And when working in blender most of your stuff is not encoded. Instead each raw frame is a raw frame that at end of process gets encoded into a video stream.

“KDE? Nobody whoâ€™s sane installs it.” Sorry not true. On windows its not sane to install it because it not stable yet. Linus and many others have been kde users.

Viktor
“On Windows you always get the newest versions of FLOSS software, thanks to a non-existing flawed repository system.”
Windows users also fail to update software. Windows users also update software before proper checking is done on it so it fails on them in bad ways. So there are good sides to repository system as well.

Both paths are flawed not having a repository system leads to another set of problems. This is a case of pick the flaws you want.

“Yes it can but in a directory with files able, baker, charlie and able\ baker, what is that other OS going to do when the command, â€œdel able bakerâ€ is given? Thereâ€™s a reason spaces are used for punctuation. Also, how about able\ \ baker and able\ baker? See any confusion?”

“del able baker” would delete files “able” and “baker”. Which is by design, as DEL takes a list of files to delete.

For folders/files with spaces, you do the same as UNIX and use quotes. del “able baker”. Or use Tab-completion to do it for you.

To forestall your reply to this, you really shouldn’t make too much of deleting the wrong files by mistake in Windows while “RM” still exists in its current form in Linux. Glass houses and stones…

It’s all a non-issue anyway; how many average users would open CMD or Powershell (or Bash / UNIX shell-du-jour) to do something as simple as deleting files?? Select file(s) and press Delete, or drag to Trash/Recycle Bin.

Yes it can but in a directory with files able, baker, charlie and able\ baker, what is that other OS going to do when the command, “del able baker” is given? There’s a reason spaces are used for punctuation. Also, how about able\ \ baker and able\ baker? See any confusion? There’s more confusion in mixed-case file-names. Do we want confusion in IT? Nope. Get rid of that other OS and there’s a lot less confusion.

Viktor wrote, “Thereâ€™s more software available for Windows than there is for Linux. Period. Not everyone is or can be content with second- or third-rate knockoffs of commercial software.”

A lot of commercial software imitates FLOSS. A lot of commercial software is absolute crap. I once took a course where I was asked to use a certain piece of software. From the developer’s website it was not even clear what the programme did. When I installed it on an XP system and saw what it did, I used FreeMind on GNU/Linux. It worked very well. Another application for the same course simulated a web page created by the student as if visited by a browser. When I figured out what that one did, I set up a real server on the web and pointed the instructor to it. There’s absolute useless crap out there that salesmen manage to collect licences to use. The most expensive software I ever saw in schools cost $100 per seat per annum. It was no more useful than GCompris, designed built and shared by teachers. Another time an Integrated Library System failed to install for weeks because the “authentication code” would not take. I installed a FLOSS ILS in 15 minutes and told my employer to use that. Suddenly the crapware was made to work. The employer had payed $thousands for the privilege of having software not work.

oldman wrote, “Setting your XP stations up with RDP could do the same thing and better as ssh Pog.”

Nope, not even close. RDP does the GUI stuff but I don’t need/want a GUI to install software, check clocks, storage, usage, etc. on multiple machines quickly.

So, there is a “shutdown” command in that other OS. Note that the notation is different than POSIX shutdown so I have to know which machines run which OS to do the job. That’s unnecessary complication. M$ had the POSIX model from which to work but deliberately broke the standard so that people forced to use that other OS would be locked in. I have seen it many times:

\ instead of /,

space in filename,

mixed-case filenames,

space in user-name,

…

all design-choices to make migrating difficult. I have seen lots of software with these problems built in and that’s all that prevented them being used with GNU/Linux. I once received an entire CD full of HTML that would not work on GNU/Linux because the file-names were random-case. I ran a script over them to make my own version and sent it back to the distributor who was blissfully unaware of the hole they were working inside.

“openSSH is essential to my way of life and it is not available on that other OS except by installing a huge glorp, CygWinâ€¦ I once did that so I could shutdown that other OS as well as GNU/Linux from my scripts. It was a pain. Of course there are close approximations but they are not openSSH.”

Photoshop is essential to a lot of large and successful businesses and it is not available on that statistically “other” OS except by installing a cheap knock-off… I had to do that once to edit some images. It was a pain. It’s always touted as a close approximation but it’s not Photoshop.

“qalculate is my favourite calculator after LibreOffice and itâ€™s only for GNU/Linux”

That funny sound is the sound of a floor (where the bottom of a barrel used to be) being excavated to a depth of several feet.

@Oldman

“Setting your XP stations up with RDP could do the same thing and better as ssh Pog.”

RDP for full-on GUI. Just want to remotely run a script or a console session, then PSEXEC is your friend.

psexec \\remotecomputer cmd.exe (or path to your script. Or use it to run Powershell.)

“Some GNU utilities like Cron. M$ has something like it but itâ€™s not Cron.”

Actually Scheduled tasks are far better than cron and can be set up via script as well.

“openSSH is essential to my way of life and it is not available on that other OS except by installing a huge glorp, CygWinâ€¦ I once did that so I could shutdown that other OS as well as GNU/Linux from my scripts. It was a pain. Of course there are close approximations but they are not openSSH.”

Setting your XP stations up with RDP could do the same thing and better as ssh Pog. But since I know you like commend line I assume you knew about this

shutdown /s /t 0 /m \\FOO

for shutting down a workstation named FOO and

shutdown /r /t 0 /m \\FOO

for rebooting FOO

And this does not even begin to scratch the surface of what you can down with powershell 2.0.

“qalculate is my favourite calculator after LibreOffice and itâ€™s only for GNU/Linux.

qalculate is my favourite calculator…Many of my favourite apps are available for that other OS but thatâ€™s certainly no inducement for me to become a slave of M$.

It is quite a reach, Mr. Pogson, to suggest that such a program is vital to a person in your circumstances and could dictate which personal computer OS to use! Quite a reach indeed.

As to being an inducement to use Windows, you are coyly misstating the conventional argument that having most open source programs available for Windows offers no inducement to switch to Linux. 99% of the combined Linux and Windows users need no incentive, they are already using Windows.

openSSH is essential to my way of life and it is not available on that other OS except by installing a huge glorp, CygWin… I once did that so I could shutdown that other OS as well as GNU/Linux from my scripts. It was a pain. Of course there are close approximations but they are not openSSH.

qalculate is my favourite calculator after LibreOffice and it’s only for GNU/Linux.

bc is what I use when I need more precision.

Many of my favourite apps are available for that other OS but that’s certainly no inducement for me to become a slave of M$.

Thousands of new packages is a big part of it but also some major improvements in performance…

A pie in the sky sort of answer, Mr. Pogson. What do the “thousands of new packages” do for you? I go through my day, week, month, and even year using maybe 4 or 5 applications regularly and maybe 5 more on rare occasions. Having thousands of new ones to go with, presumably, tens of thousands of old ones seems out of focus.

How many of those packages are not available for Windows and what do they do that is useful outside of providing utility support for Linux itself?

Phenom wrote, ” you need a new version of the OS to get new applications!”

Not true. I can install what I want but I may not be able to use APT to do it. Even one using the stable 6 release can install new packages from testing or experimental with APT. Debian GNU/Linux gives complete control to the user.

Viktor
“Is this supposed to be a solution? Seems to be like every â€œsolutionâ€ in GNU/Linux, an esoteric workaround.”

Really its just implementing something of the design that has been there for over 30 years. Yes 30 years is correct longer than Linux has existed.

The lib32 and lib64 really was the esoteric workaround. Sun microsystem is the ones who designed ELF and designed in a system to support multi-arch. Just it was never implemented commonly.

Its really only a minor step up from multi-arch to support multi distribution.
“Support for multiple incompatible ABI variants on the same ISA.” What is the difference is this to a distribution to distributions. They are just incompatible ABI variants with each other.

Lot of problems have come from going the exotic work around instead of following the design sun created down.

This is very much MS side by side assemblies done on a way larger scale Viktor.

Multi-arch lays down the first foundations for multi distribution and fusing the Linux world back into one.

These are just introductions. As dominate usage could appear in 8.0. Multiarch will reduce debian repo size in time. Since you will not need x86 32 bit libraries and programs specially wrapped for 64 bit.

That is not including all the application upgrades and new features in those applications. Also there are many new applications as well.

Also one very warped feature this might be the first debian release that has been on time since its creation.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. Now that I'm retired I still use GNU/Linux on every computer in my home except the smartphones which run Android/Linux.

Lately, I've been giving lots of thought to the world I inherited and which I will leave to my descendants. I'm planting grass, trees, flowers and vegetables in my large lot and I've ordered a Solo EV. I plan to charge my Solo by means of a tracking solar array. Life is good if you have a purpose. I do.